To the Rural Poor

Written: Written in March 1903
Published:
First published as a separate pamphlet in May 1903, in Geneva, by the League of Russian Social-Democracy Abroad.
Published according to the text of the pamphlet.
Source:Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1964,
Moscow,
Volume 6,
pages 361-432.
Translated: ??? ???
Transcription\Markup:R. Cymbala and D. WaltersPublic Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2003).
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Notes

[1]
While preparing the pamphlet, To the Rural Poor, Lenin drew up
several variants of the plan and individual items for the first variant,
as well as plans for separate chapters of the pamphlet (see Lenin
Miscellany XIX, pp. 339-56).

Regarding the aims of the pamphlet, To the Rural Poor, Lenin
informed Plekhanov in a letter of March 1903 that he was writing a popular
pamphlet for peasants about the agrarian programme, in which he explained
the Marxist view of the class struggle in the countryside on the basis of
concrete data on the four strata of the village population (landlords,
peasant bourgeoisie, middle peasants, and semi-proletarians together with
proletarians).

The pamphlet was published in Geneva in May 1903 by the League of Russian
Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad.

The text of the draft programme of the R.S.D.L.P., with an introduction
written by Lenin, was appended to the pamphlet, which was very widely
distributed. It was transported illegally to Russia from abroad,
dispatched to various towns and from there distributed among the
villages. During the period from May 1903 to December 1905 alone, the
pamphlet was supplied to 75 towns and villages, according to the
incomplete data available. It was studied in illegal Social-Democratic and
workers’ circles, penetrated into the army and navy, and was read by
students in secondary schools and universities. In 1904 the pamphlet was
republished by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. abroad; it was
several times reprinted in Russia.